Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira. Photo: Chamber of Deputies.
By Lorenzo Santiago – Nov 14, 2024
Brazilian Minister Mauro Vieira repeats Lula’s remarks and says that the recall of the Venezuelan ambassador is not final
Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira, reinforced on Wednesday, November 13, the position that the Brazilian government has no intention of breaking off relations with Venezuela. During a hearing in the Foreign Relations Committee of the National Congress, the Foreign Minister said that dialogue with Caracas remains “normal,” and that the departure of the Venezuelan ambassador from Brasilia will not be definitive.
The minister’s speech comes in the wake of statements made by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). On Sunday, Lula said that he would not question the decision of the Supreme Court of other countries.
“The solution needs to be built by the Venezuelans themselves and not imposed from outside, with more sanctions and isolation. We’ve already seen that that doesn’t work. We can’t repeat the mistakes we made at the time of Guaidó’s self-proclamation as president,” said Vieira. In 2019, then-president Jair Bolsonaro recognized the self-proclaimed deputy Juan Guaidó as head of the Venezuelan Executive, after Nicolás Maduro was re-elected in 2018.
The minister also reinforced what the Brazilian government’s own special advisor, Celso Amorim, had also said at a session of the Foreign Affairs Committee: Brazil will not break off relations with Venezuela.
“Although the circumstances impose an inevitable reduction in the dynamism of the bilateral relationship, this in no way means that Brazil should break off relations or anything of that nature with Venezuela. On the contrary, dialogue and negotiation, not isolation, are the key to any peaceful solution in Venezuela,” he said.
Vieira had been summoned to participate in a hearing to talk about the situation involving Brazil and Venezuela on October 17, but it was canceled due to a scheduling issue. The request for the hearing was made by Senator Ciro Nogueira.
The foreign minister also spoke about the summoning of the Venezuelan ambassador to Brasilia, Manuel Vadell, for consultations. Caracas said that the measure was taken after Amorim’s “interventionist and crude” statements. According to Vieira, this departure was not definitive and cited his own example to demonstrate that this is a normal situation in relations between different countries.
“The issue with the ambassador is that he wasn’t removed permanently. The Venezuelan ambassador in Brasilia was called in for consultations for a period. I was ambassador in Buenos Aires during an excellent period of bilateral relations and I was called in for consultations once or twice because of issues, friction, differences that need to be explained,” he said.
Mauro Vieira’s statements seemed to cool tensions that has heated up in recent weeks, especially after Brazil vetoed the entry of Venezuelans into the BRICS. The decision was not justified by the Brazilian government, which irritated Venezuelan diplomacy.
On Monday, Maduro praised Lula’s stance of guaranteeing “non-interference” in the internal affairs of other countries. According to the Venezuelan, the speech was a “wise” reflection by the PT leader, and he added “a point in favor of Lula.”
“I agree with Lula. Each country has to find its own way of resolving its issues, its conflicts, its problems. Brazil, with its institutions and its sovereign national dynamic, and Venezuela with our sovereign dynamic. I think that’s a wise reflection on Lula’s part. I could say: Point in favor of Lula,” said the Venezuelan on his weekly program Con Maduro +.
Crisis between Venezuela and Brazil
The tension between the two neighboring countries began in the Venezuelan electoral race. The Brazilian Superior Electoral Court (TSE) was going to send two observers to monitor the election, but backed out after Maduro claimed that the Brazilian ballot boxes “are not audited”. Instead of observers, the Brazilian government sent its special advisor, Celso Amorim, to Caracas during the elections.
Maduro was elected for a third term with 51.97% of the votes, against 43.18% for the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia. The Venezuelan opposition contested the result and claimed to have collected more than 80% of the copies of the electoral minutes and, according to the right-wing coalition Plataforma Unitaria, they indicated a landslide victory for Urrutia.
This, coupled with reports of a hacker attack on Venezuela’s electoral system, led Maduro to call for a judicial investigation. The Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) investigated the alleged attacks, collected all the electoral material from the body and heard 9 of the 10 candidates who contested the ballot. Only Edmundo González Urrutia was absent.
At the BRICS summit, held in Kazan, Russia, from October 22 to 24, the Venezuelan government had hoped to be incorporated into the group as a “partner state”, but was left off the list of 13 new members by a veto from Brazil.
The reason for the veto was not publicly justified by Lula’s government. The president did not attend the event and sent his foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, to lead the delegation. Caracas claims that the decision was a “stab in the back” and that the Brazilian government’s “meddling” measure is a way of interfering in local politics.
At a hearing in the Chamber of Deputies, Amorim stressed that the issue of the ballot should be resolved by Venezuelans and that Brazil does not recognize the election of President Nicolás Maduro until the disaggregated results are presented. Amorim did not clearly explain the veto in the BRICS. First, he said that it is necessary to be a country with influence and that represents the region, something that, for him, Venezuela does not fulfill. Secondly, he mentioned the unease between the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments.
In response to the special advisor’s remarks, the Venezuelan government summoned the Venezuelan ambassador to Brazil, Manuel Vadell, for consultations. In a statement, Caracas said that the measure was taken after Amorim’s “interventionist and crude” statements. The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry also summoned Brazil’s chargé d’affaires in Caracas to express its “rejection” of the statements made by representatives of the Brazilian government in relation to the country’s electoral process.
